The Baha'i Temple of South America, design by Toronto architect Siamak Hariri was commissioned back in the early aughts with two major constraints: A (very) limited budget and the mandate to build a structure that would last at least 400 years. We will address the 400-year mandate in a follow-up post.
Building such an incredibly rich, textured and complex building on such a tight budget (30M USD) required nothing short of a miracle. The Baha'i faith has such dedicated followers that many volunteered significant chunks of time to take part in the adventure, people doing it just to be part of something greater than themselves, that would tremendously contribute to the community, both locally and internationally.
This is in essence, every marketer's wet dream. Being able to build such a loyal following that people do extraordinary things to support a brand or a cause. Very few for-profit brands actually managed to get anywhere remotely close to this level of faith. Only the likes of Apple, Tesla and a few others achieve it.
Religion, social cause and local communities, on the other hand, routinely achieve extraordinary things on a shoestring and tight budget. Why? because they put their cause first and the finances second. They exist to fulfill something greater than the sum of each and every follower.
There are businesses out there that take on social causes and put them ahead of profitability. Often, what ends up happening is that they end up being more profitable than they would otherwise.
When one doesn't care about profit and does good in the world good things happen. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
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